


Quaint, Dear

by SpyVsTailor



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M, finding love again, five minute fic, i'm going to do god's work and correct some serious mistakes, mr. fellowes tear down this wall, slow burn love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 11:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20873792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpyVsTailor/pseuds/SpyVsTailor
Summary: They are spending an awful lot of time together lately.





	Quaint, Dear

**Author's Note:**

> Henry Talbot? I don't know her.
> 
> I like to try my hand at gifting the fandoms I love with at least a little something. So here's my offer for the Downton Gang. It's just a five minute little thing I typed out this morning. Something to sustain me.

She had changed so subtly that no one noticed at first.

Cold, foggy mornings spent traipsing up and down the berth and width of Downton's grounds, visiting the farms and popping into the village on estate business, and no one had even noticed how she had changed.

"Mary's laughing more, have you noticed, Robert?" Cora would ask as her husband prepared to crawl into their marriage bed for the night, rubbing her hands with hand cream that smelled of sweet peas.

In the void of Matthew's death, Mary had withdrawn into herself in such a way, that even when she emerged, there were parts of her that remained tucked away, hidden, tamped down, down, deep down inside her.

Georgie was a blessing.

At first Mary was worried he would remind her too much of Matthew, but hours spent in the nursery or walking with Tom and Sybbie around the grounds, she had come to find Georgie a great relief. Those parts of Matthew, the beautiful, wonderful parts she admired, were alive in Georgie and she found comfort in that. Matthew's kindness, his generosity, his patience, they shone in her son.

Part of it, she knew, was thanks to Tom as well.

Tom's steady, ever-present, gentle Irish brogue, speaking and teaching Georgie all manners of things about being a boy readying himself to one day be a man, had become the song of her afternoons.

"I've only just realized that we haven't had a young man come to visit in a great while," Robert mused one morning as he and Cora sat in the library, Tiaa at his feet. The sun shining in through the window, coursing its way slowly across the Oriental rug towards the mahogany leg of Robert's favourite chair in the library, dust motes catching like glittering jewels in the beam. "You don't suppose Mary's given up the ghost of finding another husband?"

She was grateful for Tom, for another young person there at Downton after Edith left. Someone to share looks with when her papa said something completely archaic. And Tom, her newest and dearest friend, would smile with his eyes the colour of Persian turquoise in her direction. They were not quite the pale, haunting blue of Matthew's eyes, where Matthew's eyes were thoughtful, often times piercing, Tom's were lively and filled with a million stories never spoken.

Sometimes, in the still of the evening, after supper, when they were sitting, she would wonder about what sort of stories Tom kept in those eyes of his. Tales of Ireland, no doubt. Stories of youthful mischief and rebellion acts.

He had told her, one time as they walked from the oldest known oak on the Downton grounds, about dances he would attend as a teenager. How rowdy and a little thrilling they had sounded to her. Nothing at all like the dances and galas she had attended in her youth.

"Mary shouldn't have to settle for companionship from the Estate Agent."

The Dowager had sat herself in the parlour, closest to the door. Her violet skirts rustling with each shift of the woman's body, the satin swish reminding Cora and Isobel of just how grand she was, without the woman herself ever having to say a word. She radiated grandiosity from her person like the sun radiates warmth in the spring.

"_Tom_," Cora began firmly, "has been a Godsend to us. And Mary has certainly come alive with him around."

The Dowager shifted her shoulders a little, like an angry hen scuffling at the earth with her claws, ruffling her feathers for a fight.

Isobel was calmly sipping her tea, a faraway look in her eyes, dreaming of the son she lost, of the boy she buried and left alone in the earth.

"She needs more friends," Isobel finally offered. "I wonder if she'd like to come volunteer at the hospital."

"Volunteer work has never been for Mary," Cora said. "She gives, but not like that."

"Perhaps she might, if Branson were to volunteer?" The Dowager said, her eyes saying more than her lips ever would.

She had never noticed how small she was until she had slipped one day as they walked from Mr. Mason's old farm, her foot catching in the mud, sending her backwards.

Tom, quick as a shot, reached out and caught her hand in his, holding her up with a strength she had never imagined he had.

Were his hands always that much larger than hers? Had Tom always been so much more than her? His entire frame suddenly seemed to dwarf hers, his shoulders were so broad and while he wasn't much taller than her, he suddenly seemed a beast compared to her thin frame. How had she never noticed?

Matthew was slender, lean, perfect for an aristocrat. She had always admired how well he could carry himself.

Tom was built for work and holding women up and out of the mud, apparently. And yet, she realized he carried himself just as well.

"Why don't you send Mary and Tom into London to shop for the servants, Robert? They could use the change of scenery."

Outside the windows in the sitting room, fat flakes of snow was falling, the first of the season, blanketing the ground in a fresh canvas of white. Clinging to the branches of the trees like thick sugary icing on a cake.

"Mary and Tom are not joined at the hip," Robert argued lightly. "I'll send Tom, he'll suffice."

She hadn't noticed how much Tom had been a constant in her world until he had left for London.

Not that she needed him, but that at times she would long for a walk, but it was dull without him beside her.

Papa's topics of conversation, his old fashioned way of thinking, his stubborn push against any form of change, went unchecked.

There was no one to share a look with, there was no one to gently prod him back into a more modern way of thinking. Mary tried, but she didn't have the soft touch with Papa that Tom had. She was prickly, too quick to sharp edged wit, not patient enough with Papa's bull headed need to cling to the world of his youth.

Her days were filled with flitting from room to room like a ghost haunting the Abbey. Sybbie and Georgie were a pleasant diversion, but without Tom, she found she couldn't go exploring with the two young children. Nanny had to tag along and as much as she liked Nanny, the woman was dull and too serious about her job. Not at all willing to share gossip or downstairs tidbits of news.

Charles Graves had stopped by Downton on his way up North in a flashy new automobile and all Mary could think was that she didn't even know what kind it was to tell Tom about later. She found herself staring at it when she had a moment, trying to put enough of it to memory in order to tell him all about the auto. He would be sad he missed it.

"I'm not the man's greatest champion, but he did seem to put a little spark of life into Lady Mary."

Mrs. Hughes looked at Carson in shock, before smiling, "well, high words of praise from the man's greatest critic."

"It's only been four days and Lady Mary has been moping like it's been a month. I don't care to see her like this."

She had been excited to see him, but that small thing inside her which made it hard for Mary to express her emotions as much as her sisters had been able to tamp it down into indifference.

"Were you gone? I hadn't noticed," she had lied to him.

To her delight, Tom knew her well enough to laugh at that. Because despite the walls Mary had built around herself in her youth, Tom somehow had built a window into them, a way to peer beyond them to what she hoarded like a dragon, those feelings and emotions she kept hidden well behind her mask of ice.

That night Tom sat beside her at supper instead of across from her, telling her without words that he missed her too. Because he wanted to be able to lean over and whisper to her everything she missed while he was in London. Things he saw which he knew she'd love to hear about. Dresses and fashions, hairstyles and music. But most importantly news and gossip.

How well he knew her.

Mary had changed. She had gone from a woman with too many suitors for her own good, to being content in the idea that she would have no other man in her life but her companion Tom. She could live until she was eighty, taking her tea with Tom, running the estate with him, sharing looks over breakfast at Papa's old ways. She would continue to refuse any man thrust at her by Mama in a sincere attempt for her to remarry. Times had changed, women didn't need husbands. She had her son, her home and Tom. And that, for the time being, was good enough for her.

And maybe one day she'd even tell Tom that he was going to be her lifelong companion whether he liked it or not.

For now they would take their walks, share their looks, listen and give advice and raise their children together.


End file.
